


The Rising Tide

by SilentAuror



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dream Sequence, Drunk Fic, M/M, POV John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:25:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentAuror/pseuds/SilentAuror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is dreaming. Outside the cottage in Brighton, the tide is rising. Spoilers for <i>The Sign of Three</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rising Tide

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [Przypływ- TŁUMACZENIE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3573908) by [Toootie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toootie/pseuds/Toootie)



**The Rising Tide**

 

He can hear the sea even as he sleeps. 

He’s not from the coast; he’s not accustomed to the sound of the sea. It’s soothing. Really lovely, just as Mary promised it would be. He likes the sea. He’s glad they came to Brighton for the honeymoon. Just before tourist season really got underway, too. It was a good idea. It’s a beautiful spot. Mary chose it and he wasn’t fussed about where they went, honestly, so he didn’t object. 

But he’s not thinking of that now. He’s sleeping, dreaming, and the sound of the sea is lapping around the edges of his brain. Rhythmic. Repetitive. Soothing? No, not just now. 

( _Desire. The flame kindling in his gut, his flesh rising._ )

He’s there, in the sitting room at Baker Street. Why Baker Street? (Why not Baker Street? It was home for so long, still feels like home sometimes. He’s still surprised to wake up and find himself not at Baker Street, even after all this time.) It’s his stag night, again. Vaguely he knows that this is a dream, that this is territory revisited, but it doesn’t stop the dream from unravelling in front of him. 

It’s his go and he’s struggling to think of a good question to solve the sticky note pasted to his forehead, but he’s also sliding out of his chair. Sherlock’s knee is there, so he uses it to steady himself. Just as before, he looks down to see his hand there, on Sherlock’s leg – knee, it sounds better if it’s his knee, not his leg – and realises that perhaps it shouldn’t be there. No: definitely not, that idea is very firm in his head, except just now he can’t remember why. Sherlock’s knee is warm and he’s wearing a suit – a suit for a pub crawl, the idiot, but that’s hardly new. What _is_ new is that Sherlock is loose, relaxed, his shoulders sagging into the chair behind him in a way that John has never seen him do before. Sherlock should drink more often, he thinks. Bloody hell, _he_ should drink more often. With Sherlock. This is brilliant and everything was hilarious a moment ago but now his brain has got stuck, with his hand still on Sherlock’s knee. 

(Before, he moved it, didn’t he. Didn’t he? Yes. He must have done. But not this time, it seems; his hand is stuck where it is.)

He looks up at Sherlock, who shrugs and says, “I don’t mind.”

(But that’s not right, is it? Wasn’t it he who said that the first time?)

“Doesn’t matter,” Sherlock says, in that same, lazy, relaxed voice. He almost sounds bored, but Sherlock hates being bored: boredom is a state of tension even when his body has gone limp, and besides that there’s an odd light sparking in Sherlock’s uncharacteristically hooded eyes. He nods at John’s hand with his chin. “You can do that, if you like.”

The _k_ is just as crisp as it should be, but in contrast with his louche, careless tone it’s suddenly unbearably sexy. John feels his cheeks hotting up; he has no business finding anything Sherlock does or says sexy. (But knowing and feeling are two different things, aren’t they? They shouldn’t be, but they are. Always have been.)

“Always have been,” he says out loud, aware even as he says it that it doesn’t match what Sherlock last said, doesn’t make any sense. 

Sherlock’s brows furrow in confusion, then lift as though he’s figured it out. (How can he, when John has no clue what he meant himself?) “I know.”

John squints at him. His balance shifts and he tilts dangerously, puts his other hand on Sherlock’s other knee to keep from falling right out of the chair. “What do you know?”

“Oh, nothing, of course.” Sherlock is sarcastic now, but playfully so. “What do I ever know? I’m only a genius. With,” he adds pointedly, “an international reputation. You said so yourself.”

“What? No I didn’t. When?” John’s squint deepens. His eyes might actually be shut now. 

“Before. On the stairs.” Sherlock waves a vague, airy hand. 

“ _You_ said that.”

“Well, it’s true. You agreed.”

“I don’t think I did.” John looks down. He’s leaning forward, bracing himself on Sherlock’s warm knees. His weight is more on Sherlock’s legs than on his chair now. “What’s this, then?” he mumbles, more to himself than anyone else. 

That light flickers in Sherlock’s eyes. “We know the where, the who, and the why,” he says. “We’re just missing the what and the when.”

John frowns at him. “Is this a mystery?” The waves are growing louder; they must be in the street. Baker Street isn’t on the coast, is it? No: it must be. The Thames. Of course. It must be on the Thames. Never noticed before, that’s all. Odd: but there they are, the waves, crashing against the pavement. When the tide comes in all the way, they’ll be able to see the sea from here, from their chairs.

Sherlock sits up just a little, pushing himself onto his elbows. “It’s not a mystery. I lied: we do know the when. The when is now. The what is up to you, John Watson.”

“No, _I’m_ John Watson,” John says, momentarily confused in the game. If Sherlock is Sherlock then he is John, right? Oh: maybe not. Sherlock said he was a woman. Was that metaphorical? “What is the what?”

Sherlock looks at him and there’s just a ghost of a smirk, the odd light in his eyes stronger than ever. “You know,” he drawls. “You’ve seen it. You know. Look at your hands. The evidence is right beneath your nose.”

John looks at his hands again, and blimey, they’ve slid forward, haven’t they? Halfway up Sherlock’s thighs now and there’s definitely something wrong with this picture. “Er,” he begins. “I don’t know the what yet. You’ll have to tell me.”

“John.” It sounds like his reasonable voice, but Sherlock is all loose corners and soft angles tonight; those shots did him well. His voice is like a magnet, dark and smoky and something about it sets off the danger alert at the base of John’s neck, but that can’t be right; it’s Sherlock. His best friend. 

“You’re my best friend,” he says, blinking. He’s teetering forward. 

Sherlock smiles. “Yes,” he says. “I know. You told me.” He sits up a little more and suddenly their faces are extremely close.

John doesn’t know who does it but he thinks it might be him – they’re kissing all of a sudden, Sherlock’s hand curled around the back of his neck and now none of John’s weight is on the chair at all, is it? He’s perched on Sherlock’s legs, hands having got magically from Sherlock’s thighs to his shoulders, and the sound of the waves is louder than ever. He should say something about the tide, about how it might come up too high and they should go upstairs perhaps, before the water comes into the room. But he can’t talk because Sherlock’s tongue is in his mouth and there’s no air; he’s exhaled his in a gush through his nose and he’s suddenly quite preoccupied with how very much he needs to get his hands on more of Sherlock, and with how tight his trousers have got. “Sherlock,” he gasps, but he doesn’t know what else to say after that. 

“This is the what and the when,” Sherlock tells him, voice breathless and low. “Don’t think about the tide, John, or it will be too late. Just focus on me.”

 _Damn the tide, then._ John hears himself groan, his knees wedged between Sherlock’s hips and the sides of the chair as he pushes their bodies together, the ache in his trousers meeting a hardness in Sherlock’s that John never even suspected could exist, never thought of in conjunction with Sherlock Holmes – well, not in _reality_ (but this isn’t reality anyway, is it), but when their bodies meet he stops thinking rationally at all. It’s a bit schoolboy, this, grinding together with one’s clothes still on, but he doesn’t care; it feels good. Really good. Really, _really_ quite brilliant. The waves are pounding against the front stoop downstairs, rhythmic. Steady. Repetitive. Or possibly that’s Sherlock’s hand on him, his arm crammed between them to thumb open the button of John’s jeans, long fingers sliding right into John’s pants to stroke him. God, that’s nice, he thinks, groaning again, directly into Sherlock’s mouth. He shifts to give Sherlock more room, because that’s really, really wonderful, isn’t it. Yes. He’s saying the word out loud, along with a bit of profanity. 

“John,” Sherlock says, the breath of his word gusting over John’s lips, his forehead leaning against John’s. “If you could just – ”

“Mmm?” John opens his eyes; Sherlock’s hand has slowed. 

“Open, er, my trousers,” Sherlock requests, sounding only a touch embarrassed, still mostly drawling and relaxed. 

John realises that his hand is cupping and squeezing at Sherlock’s cock still encased in multiple layers of material and he understands. Right, yeah. Get that out of the way, then. He fumbles at the zip, partially aided by Sherlock’s impatient but clumsy fingers and finally there’s a cock in John’s hand. A very hard cock. (There’s something wrong with this, but at the moment he can’t think. The amount of pressure from Sherlock’s hand on his cock is directly inverse to his ability to think at all, and frankly he can’t be arsed anyway.) He said something earlier about Sherlock rubbing people up the wrong way. Definitely wrong about that: apparently Sherlock knows his business when it comes to rubbing people the right way after all. 

Sherlock is moaning, it’s much too loud and Mrs Hudson will hear. John tries to shush him with his mouth, inhaling Sherlock’s sounds and finding his tongue again with his own. Sherlock moves his free hand to John’s arse and pulls him closer, gets their cocks lined up next to each other, and that’s nice, John can thrust a bit now, rubbing himself directly along Sherlock’s cock, both of them wrapped up in Sherlock’s hand, John’s smaller hand closed around his. He’s liking this very, very much; it feels terribly good and he can’t think why they’ve never got drunk together before or thought of doing this in the sitting room at Baker Street, drunk or not. He’s getting lost in it, losing control of his own sounds now. All that matters is the friction, the tight, tight spiral of pleasure gathering in his balls and twisting its way through his guts. Sherlock shudders hard, his cock pulsing against John’s hotly and everything is wet – without opening his eyes, John knows that the tide has risen and breached the walls of 221B, the carpet wet. Sherlock is saying his name, his voice hoarse, cock still spasming against John’s inside their hands. 

John can’t hold it back any longer. He hears his voice rise in a shout. “Sherlock!” He’s coming, he’s coming hard, and it’s not just all over Sherlock and himself, but it’s all over the sitting room: it’s the tide itself. The sea has flooded the room, swirling around the legs of Sherlock’s chair as John pants and shudders against him in the throes of his orgasm, and the sound of the sea has mingled with the sound of the thudding heart beat in his ears, his breath as he exhales against Sherlock’s temple, chest heaving against Sherlock’s. 

“John!”

( _Confusion. The sea is still there, but Sherlock is gone. Someone else is saying his name, shaking him._ )

“John! Wake up!” A hand on his shoulder; the voice is upset. Female. (Wrong. No. Right?) John is waking, small bits of information sliding together and beginning to make sense. Mary. He opens his eyes and knows at once that something is wrong. He’s panting, and he’s wet – he went to bed nude; it’s his honeymoon, after all – and his thighs and balls and stomach and the sheets are covered with still-warm come, his body trembling with the aftershocks of a very intense orgasm indeed. His throat feels raw and he remembers the dream at once – the rising sea, the sitting room at Baker Street, and Sherlock. 

( _Oh, Christ. Sherlock._ )

He’s said his name, hasn’t he? He’s gone and had a sex dream about Sherlock, and he’s shouted his name in his sleep. John turns his head to meet Mary’s eyes, his face flooded with guilt, cheeks stained with residual heat that’s mingled shame and humiliation both, invisible in the darkness but his face is hot. 

She knows: her face is full of it. They’re on their honeymoon – the first night of their honeymoon, no less – and even though he made love to Mary before they went to sleep like any proper husband would have done, he’s had a sex dream about the wrong person. About Sherlock. He’s lying in bed next to his brand new wife and still trembling with the power of his orgasm, even while he looks Mary in the face. Her eyes are wide and full of hurt, full of a new and fuller understanding, as though everything makes more sense now. Too much sense. 

John is powerless to explain himself, powerless to apologise; the words won’t come to his mouth. Outside the cottage, the waves beat down on the shore. Nothing is all right. Nothing will ever be all right. There is nothing he can do to fix this. Perhaps Brighton wasn’t the best choice, after all.

Outside, the tide is still rising.

**Author's Note:**

> Translation into Korean is now available, courtesy of ahimsa: http://blog.naver.com/ahimsa93/120211757363


End file.
